


Scenes from the Rue Plumet

by twilightshadow



Series: Writing Prompts and Other Shenanigans [1]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Era, Domestic Fluff, Gen, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-22
Updated: 2013-08-22
Packaged: 2017-12-24 08:18:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/937704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twilightshadow/pseuds/twilightshadow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A lovely anon approached me on tumblr and asked for this:</p><p>"It's a prompt from makinghugospin: Cosette and Valjean father/daughter fluff.Just looking for some domestic cute family fic, may include Marius if you wish to go down with an AU where they start dating sooner/ Valjean doesn't go away/ overall non-tragic universe."</p><p>And I've been utterly obsessed with Les Amis, so, giving them a short break, have some father/daughter stuff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scenes from the Rue Plumet

The fire is dying.

Its warmth remains, filling the little room, but the cheery blaze has faded to spitting embers. How many times has Jean Valjean sat gazing at a dying fire, first in the small braziers that lined the convict barracks at Toulon, then his own in his rooms back in Montreuil?

And now here, in this lonely quarter of Paris, in his self-imposed exile in the small house in the Rue Plumet.

Well, not quite exile. He leans back and stretches into the creaky old armchair. He has his Cosette, and she in turn has her house and himself. He deserves less, and she deserves more, but she has been content enough.

The room darkens as the day deepens and the fire dies. The sprightly knock on the door, therefore, snaps the silence and makes him jump.

Cosette, as is her habit, enters without waiting for an affirmative. “Oh, Papa, why are you sitting here by yourself in the dark?” She sweeps toward the fire and begin stoking it, piling on logs from the store beside the fireplace.

“I wish for peace, Cosette.”

“And I wish for conversation. Would you deny me this, Papa?”

He knows he can deny her nothing. The girl he rescued (though perhaps ‘liberated’ would be the better word) from the innkeeper and his wife in Monfermeil is unrecognisable. No longer underweight, filthy and gaunt, she shines.

“Of course not.”

She smiles. “Good, because I’m staying whether you want me to or not.”

Valjean begins to rise. “Have my chair, it’s more comfortable…”

“Papa. Sit down. I am perfectly fine.” And she settles herself in the other hard chair and smiles beautifically at him across the glow of the fire.

Valjean admits defeat.

Cosette has long grown used to his eccentricities; his habit of hiding himself away, never venturing out unless absolutely necessary. She’s never questioned it. She has no need to. She is happy, and after her shaky start in life, this is all that matters.

(She would be happier still if she knew His name, and if she was right in guessing the reason that He was always there at the Luxembourg gardens).

A shadow must have passed across her face as she thought of Him, for her Papa spoke.

“You’ve not been happy lately, Cosette. I realise a life such as this must be lonely for you…but I have never seen you this unhappy.”

“I am not unhappy, or lonely, Papa.” Just wondering about a stranger’s face. “I have no need of society. If I worry about anybody being lonely, it is you.”

“My dear child…”

“You hide yourself away out here with only your fire and candlesticks for company, and you don’t leave except for our walks and your National Guard duty. You hide from something, and it eats at you, I see it in your face.”

“Cosette, my lark.” Valjean reaches out, and takes her smooth hand between his toil-rough ones. “It is true there are parts of my past I would not burden you with. You have accepted me and never questioned this, and I would only ask that you continue to do so.”

Cosette pouts. “They cannot be pleasant if they keep you in here brooding.”

Valjean smiles despite himself. “No, not always. But then a little lark comes rapping at my door in the evenings and, well…” He squeezes his surrogate daughter’s hand. “Maybe they become rather easier to bear.”

Cosette smiles. “I am glad. You are good to me, Papa. I don’t wish to see you unhappy.”

“I am not. I have you to brighten my days.”

He has never said this out loud, and he probably never will again.

“Then come and sit with us in the main house every now and again. You will do yourself no good, straining your eyes in this poky little place.”

“My eyes are just fine…”

“For now.”

Valjean laughs. “Well, if it would please you, Cosette, maybe every now and again. As long as you keep the talk of fashions to a minimum.”

“Oh really, Papa, what do you take me for?”

Their shared laughter rings through the small room. Valjean does not relinquish her hand until she retires for the night some hours later. The fire lives.  

**Author's Note:**

> My first ever prompt, also posted on my tumblr (where I am also twlightshadow). Thanks for reading! xxx


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